


Reintroductions

by Theoroark



Series: Reunion [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Blackmail, Broken Families, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, F/F, Families of Choice, Gen, Pharmercy are dog people, Team Talon (Overwatch)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theoroark/pseuds/Theoroark
Summary: When the Anubis facility is attacked, Fareeha gets more than she bargained for.





	1. Response

Fareeha did not love the fight for any reason akin to bloodlust. She would repeat her reasons to herself after a battle, or after one of her early arguments with Angela, or whenever her mother loomed too large in her mind. She loved the battle because she believed in what she was fighting for. She loved the battle because in combat, all the politics and baggage and doubt fell from her. In battle, all she had to be was good at her job. And she was good at her job.

 

And so when the alarm rang out in the Anubis facility, Fareeha felt worry as she suited up, but no dread. The call had come from the lower left flank of the compound. Their A.I. alarms had failed them, and they only knew of the attack because of a guard who had crawled to their station, warned them of six unidentified assailants, then fallen silent after a gunshot. Since they had little intel, her team stayed high, carefully scanning the site of entry first, then cautiously dipping into the facility through three different points of entry, in pairs.

 

Walid was the first to make contact. Fareeha heard a cut off exclamation, and when she spun to face his position, she saw him falling, his suit locked up, him landing with a horrible clang, then a woman in purple materializing from thin air and emptying a clip into his armor. Fareeha launched a concussive blast, knocking the woman away from him, and before she could get up four rockets were flying in her direction.

 

The assailants were prepared for them, of course. The woman vanished as quickly as she appeared, and the volley of rockets launched were immediately met with return fire. Walid was crumpled on the floor, but his vitals were steady– he was playing dead, and intruders seemed to be buying it. The interface in her visor told her the rest of her team had fared well– all suits were still 100% functional. Fareeha fell low and as the smoke cleared, she saw the squadron splitting into two teams, heading separate ways. And the clawed “T” symbol on the shoulders.

 

“Tariq, Yasmin,” she called out. “Go left. Saleh, with me!”

 

“Are you going to be okay?” Saleh asked, as they fly towards the front of the compound. She kept her eyes ahead. There could still be another ambush.

 

“Focus on the mission, Saleh.”

 

“It’s Talon. I know this must be… difficult for you–”

 

“They shot down Walid,” she said. She couldn’t hide her anger now. “It’s difficult for all of us now, isn’t it?”

 

Saleh fell silent and Fareeha cursed herself. They all worked hard to compartmentalize, to save grief for after the mission, when they could pay it its proper dues, and not compound it. Saleh had been concerned, she should not have taken it out on him–

 

She saw something move out of the corner of her eye and threw her arm out. Saleh ground to a halt behind it and a bullet whistled directly in front of them.

 

“Up!” she yelled, and she and Saleh both jetted into the sky. She bobbed near the ceiling as she surveyed the floor below them. There were two helmeted soldiers she could see, one on the catwalk and one in the security booth– they were the one who had fire one them, and by their relatively relaxed composure, she could tell they believed they were still hidden. Behind them was a black robed man, entering the entrance code to Anubis’s inner sanctum.

 

“Fire on catwalk and cover my six,” she told Saleh. Then she fired a rocket at the booth, and sped down towards the door. Debris from the catwalk rained down on her as she flew past, and she smiled grimly. The black robed man turned and pulled out his shotguns. Fareeha landed in front of him, pulled out her rocket launcher, and began the speech they both knew was futile.

 

“This facility is protected by Helix securities.” The man jolted. Some kind of black vapor slid off him, and Fareeha stumbled momentarily before composing herself. “Your accomplices are incapacitated. Surrender peacefully and you will–”

 

The door behind them slid open but the black robed man remained, standing there, staring at her. Fareeha swallowed. Saleh’s vitals were all normal, he would tell her if there was something behind her, it wasn’t that. Why wasn’t he fighting, why wasn’t he running?

 

Her pause was all it took to break the spell, though, and the man disintegrated into black smoke and fled into the sanctum.

 

“Shit, Pharah!” Fareeha blinked as Saleh came back on comms. “That’s fucking– that’s Reaper, we think he’s one of Talon’s leadership, he can like, go all ghost and shit, what the fuck is going on–”

 

The door began to slide closed. Fareeha looked back at Saleh, still in the air, and then at the retreating black cloud.

 

“Hold the door,” she said. “I’m going in.”

 

“Pharah, wait!” Fareeha jetted into the inner sanctum, and Saleh’s objection was cut off as the doors closed behind her. Comms fizzled– a security measure to prevent contamination, she remembered vaguely– the world was draped in shadows and dim blue light.

 

Reaper had been heading further inwards. There was still one more checkpoint before Anubis’s ventricle. She could still stop him. She jetted up high and flew in.

 

It was hard to see in the darkness, and she did not want him to ambush her again. But eventually she saw the pointed cloud of smoke, making its way towards the gate. She pointed her rocket launcher at it and fired– only for the smoke to simply scatter around the blast, and reform.

 

“Shit.” She landed in front of the gate and fired another rocket at it, head on. Still no use– the cloud anticipated it, now, and easily dodged. Her concussive blast successfully knocked it backwards, but it regrouped and the recharge was painfully slow. The cloud manifested back into the black robed man. Fareeha leveled her gun at him, and looked between the eyes of his white mask and the shotguns at his hips.

 

He did not draw them. He did not take a step towards her. He simply stood, watching her.

 

“Are you surrendering?” she asked. He shook his head and something about the strangeness of the situation made her feel small. Her concussive blast had recharged and she shifted, pointing that at him instead. “Are you looking to take a hostage?”

 

He was still for a moment, then shook his head again. Fareeha struggled to remain stock still. “What do you want, then?”

 

“I’m sorry,” he said. He took step towards her and she fired the blast.

 

This time, he did not dissipate. The blast connected like it would with any other man, sending him flying back into on of the blue and white pillars. His mask and one of his shotguns fell as he hit the ground, and he quickly turned away. Smoke began to dribble off him.

 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, like he wanted Fareeha to kill him. She stalked over to him, picking up the shotgun on her way– her rocket launcher would do her significant damage as well at close range. She grabbed his scalp– some of it crumbled in her fist, to her revulsion– and turned him to face her.

 

“I’m sorry, Fareeha,” Gabriel Reyes said.

 

She dropped him and stepped backwards. He looked down at the floor but she still had a good view of his face and yes, yes it was him. He had glowing red eyes and patches of skin were missing and she could see his molars in one spot but it was him. Her mother had come back a spectre and he had come back into– this–

 

“What are you doing here?” she asked hoarsely. He looked up quickly and she could almost laugh at how anxious he looked.

 

“The Swiss base it was– they did this to me, Fareeha, Overwatch, they brought me back all wrong and then left me– I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I’m not human– Fareeha, please–”

 

He made a movement towards her and she took another step back, and lifted up his gun.

 

“What are you doing _here_?” she repeated. He stared at her in confusion for a moment, and then his eyes widened.

 

“You have to get out, Fareeha.” He scrambled towards her and she took a step backwards and trained the shotgun on him, but he still managed to grab ahold of her arm. “Helix has no idea what it has here. It has no idea what it’s playing with. You have to get out, Fareeha, please–”

 

“You don’t get to touch me.”

 

He froze and let go of her as the anger spilled out.

 

“You’re with them,” she yelled. Her voice echoed in the empty chamber. “The shot my mother, they shot your best friend, and you’re with them!”

 

“Your mother’s alive,” he said in a small voice.

 

“I know,” she said. The confusion came back to his face and it disgusted her more than the teeth and the rot. “They still took her from me, nearly for good, they killed so many others– God, Gabriel, how many have you killed?”

 

“As many as I needed to,” he said. He seemed to find his footing for the first time and started to stand, but Fareeha moved the shotgun to his temple, and so he froze on his knees. “I killed for Overwatch, Fareeha,” he said. Some anger had dripped into his voice now. “They did this to me, they made it so I had to kill to survive– literally, kill to survive.” He lifted up a hand and let it disintegrate and reform, and snorted when Fareeha flinched. “I’m not doing this for fun, Fareeha. I’m doing this to get justice.”

 

Somewhere, past her memories of him playing basketball with her or sewing her Halloween costumes or her leaving flowers at his grave, she remembered Gabriel hugging her at her mother’s funeral, and whispering to her that he would get her justice.

 

She moved the shotgun to the center of his forehead. He closed his eyes.

 

Then, a purple skull flashed on her interface, and her suit locked up. The shotgun clattered to the ground. He looked around in confusion. The woman in purple reappeared from nowhere and looked between the two of them.

 

“I think it’s time we get going, boss,” she said innocently. Gabriel was silent for a moment, staring at Fareeha. Then he nodded. He picked up his mask and his shotgun and followed the purple woman towards the exit.

 

Fareeha struggled against her suit. Her arms and legs were complete immobile, her comms were dead. The voice command system was offline. There was an emergency eject button on the right side of her helmet, but she couldn’t move her arms–

 

The suit wiggled slightly with her movements. She stopped, then began pushing to the right with all her strength. She could hear Gabriel’s footsteps getting further and further away. And then, she crashed to the floor, and ten seconds later, she heard the beep of the eject system. The suit neatly released her. She grabbed her rocket launcher from the ground, and ran.

 

The woman was tapping the exit code into the door when she caught up to them. They turned at the sound of her footsteps. The door began to open and she leveled the rocket launcher at them.

 

“Don’t, Fareeha,” Gabriel said. As tired as he was when she would ask him for the tenth piggyback ride of the day.

 

“Surrender peacefully,” she responded. He sighed.

 

“You’re just like your mother,” he said. She pulled the trigger, and he disintegrated, and the woman vanished. The rocket hit the edges of the doors and sent shrapnel flying at her as she fell backwards from the knockback.

 

“Saleh?” she called. Her comms system was still dead, but she had told him to stay by the door, maybe he could hear her. “Saleh!”

 

A figure appeared in her vision and she felt a surge a relief, followed by a wave of delayed recognition of pain. “Saleh?” she whispered.

 

A second figure appeared.

 

Fareeha pushed back as they walked towards her, then cried out when the movement sent a lancing pain through her ribs. The first figure broke into a run and she tried to move again, but this time the pain sent her vision into white.

 

When the world came back, the Shrike was kneeling in front of her.

 

“Stay still,” she said.

 

“Mom?”

 

The Shrike raised a finger to her lips, and Fareeha’s world went black.


	2. Retreat

“Why did you fail?” Moira asked. She didn’t bother to look away from her holovid, so she missed Sombra winking at Gabe before she spoke. Gabe was wearing his mask, so they both missed him rolling his eyes. 

 

“Bad intel, doc,” Sombra said. Moira’s eyes flashed up and narrowed at Sombra’s casual tone, and Sombra leaned against the dashboard and grinned. “Helix squad was ten personnel, not six. Think we took half out before we left, but we would have had lost all of our people if we’d continued the push.”

 

“The capture of the Anubis AI is more valuable than any amount of human capital,” Moira snapped. “You should have taken those losses.”

 

“I feel you, doc, I do.” Gabe vaguely remembered Sombra making fun of him whenever he used slang from his childhood, and noted how her grin widened at Moira’s evident disdain. “But we still needed to get the thing out, and you know, captured. These things are the key to the war, I know, but if it’s running wild we’re fucked too. And so Gabe wanted to wait for us to have more security.”

 

Both women turned to look at him expectantly. From his pilot’s seat, he nodded. Moira sighed. 

 

“I hope you at least got some more accurate intelligence from this exercise.”

 

“Who’re you talking to?” Sombra said, wiggling her fingers and creating a cybernetic pattern in their wake. 

 

“Then send it to me and Reyes. Dismissed.” Moira ended the call and Gabriel leaned forward and shut down the comms software. When he sat back, Sombra was now grinning at him. 

 

“What,” he said flatly, knowing full well what. She laughed. 

 

“You’re welcome.”

 

“You didn’t need to do that.” He glanced behind him, but the cockpit doors were still shut, ensuring that none of the Talon troopers could hear them. Sombra laughed again. 

 

“Sure. Talon council would be just as touched as I was about your reunion with the Amari girl. You bet, Gabe.”

 

“We’re not doing this, Sombra,” he said. She raised an eyebrow. “Blackmailing me isn’t going to work. You didn’t have eyes or ears in that facility. You have no proof. It’d be your word against mine. And no one in Talon trusts you, with good reason.”

 

“Maybe not,” Sombra said placidly. “But I have the feeds showing that there were six Helix birds, not ten. And you just went along with that lie.”

 

He had. For some absurd reason, his instinct moments ago had been to follow Sombra’s lead. His body had gone long ago, but his mind must finally have started slipping. 

 

“And really, Gabe.” Sombra’s grin was in place but her eyes were narrowed. “Do you think they really trust you, either?”

 

He stared over the dashboard, through the windshield that Moira’s image had been projected on. Their ship was cutting through rolling hills of clouds, barely visible under the waxing moon. Sombra was gambling right now. This wasn’t preplanned. Even if she had known Fareeha would be there, she couldn’t have guessed what had happened. He had made sure of that. Her evidence against him would plant doubt in his fellow council members, but nothing he couldn’t fight back against. Sombra was an opportunist, and she was sinking her claws into the smallest spot of blood, wildly hoping it was an artery. He could exploit that. 

 

And he was so tired. He didn’t want to relive this mission over and over again, in explanations to people who called humans capital. He didn’t want to think about Fareeha anymore. 

 

“Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”

 

Sombra seemed thrown by his acquiescence, and she studied him for a moment before returning to her affected nonchalance. “There’s something I’m researching,” she said. “Some extracurricular intel work. I think you might be able to help me out with it.”

 

“Who are you working against?” She tapped her nails against the dashboard and stared out at the clouds. He sighed. “Sombra, I’m not going to be any help if I don’t know what I’m doing.”

 

“Doesn’t seemed to have stopped you so far,” she said. He stiffened– bits of smoke drifted off him– and she almost seemed guilty. They were both silent for a moment. 

 

“Everyone,” she said finally. “I’m looking at everyone, and everything. I think there’s something big out there. And I think you can help me find it.”

 

“Well, great,” he said. “Good to know you’re keeping things manageable.” She laughed. 

 

“I’ll show you what I got,” she said, clapping his shoulder. He jolted a little in his seat. “I think you’ll be real interested. And don’t worry. I’m not going to need you right away. I got stuff I want to do around base first. But there’s some stuff at Vishkar that I think could be super useful, so we might be heading to Rio soon.”

 

She projected an enormous web from her palm and began to explain. He studied it– he was there, so was Ana, so was Fareeha– and half listened. She was right, it was interesting, but he hadn’t had the chance to eat during the mission and the rot was acute. It difficult to focus through the fog of pain. 

 

“And see, this dovetails nicely with your shit,” Sombra said. She jabbed a finger at the purple Overwatch logo. “They’re in it, somewhere. I wanna know who did this to you, too. Because I think it’s a big piece.” She paused. “And, you know. It’s fuckin’ shitty, what they did to you.”

 

“Thanks for the support, Sombra.”

 

“Hey, what are friends for?” She reached her pointed finger towards the nose of his mask. “Boo–”

 

He slapped her hand away before she made contact. She folded her arms and pouted. “You’re no fun,” she said, and he snorted. He was right, she was an opportunist. But it didn’t feel like his mind was going. 


	3. Responsibility

When Fareeha woke up, she was face to face with Anubis. 

Not the A.I. Anubis, which was a good thing. The old Anubis. The Anubis from the ancient history books her aunts had given her. That Anubis was dusty and faded but carrying on as normal, weighing souls against a feather. 

She turned over and came face to face with her mother, watching her. She would have happily taken the A.I. instead. 

“You’re up,” Ana said. “Good.” She picked up a glowing yellow dart and stuck it into Fareeha’s arm. Fareeha barely winced. “Your ribs are mostly healed, but you’ll still be experiencing residual soreness. I don’t want you moving too much, habibti.”

Fareeha said nothing, just looked around the room. Anubis was not alone. The stone walls were covered in hieroglyphics. There was a little kitchenette and a computer set-up, but wherever they were was some place untenably old. 

Speaking of, Commander Morrison was sitting in the corner, watching them. 

“Of course,” Fareeha muttered. Ana looked at her in confusion for a moment, then looked back at Morrison. 

“Ah. Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Sweetheart, I know things must be very confusing for you right now–”

Fareeha’s gaze drifted past Morrison, back to the computers. There was a map and a frozen security camera still of Reaper. 

“You were going after Gabriel,” she said. Her mother fell quiet. 

“Yes,” Commander Morrison said, after a moment of silence. 

“But Fareeha, we wouldn’t have gotten involved if you hadn’t been there.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Fareeha said. She sat up and her mother reached out, then withdrew when she looked at her. “You took me away from my team. I was already one man down. I need to get back to them.”

“We tuned into your frequency,” Morrison said. “All of Gabe’s force retreated, immediately. Your team’s okay.”

“You didn’t know that,” she said. She was in her sports bra. She had been wearing a long sleeved t shirt in her suit. She scanned the room for it. “They’ll be looking for me, I need to debrief, I need to tell them–”

“Fareeha.” She looked down at her mother. Ana was holding her t shirt loosely in her hands. “Please let us explain what’s going on.”

Some part of her, the tactical, captain’s part, the part that loved combat, told her to listen. That once she knew what was going on, she could leave, and bring the information back to Helix. But the sight of her mother sitting in this tomb, and Commander Morrison leaning against ancient hieroglyphics, sent the anger up her throat again. 

“What are you going to tell me?” she spat. “You already told me why you faked your death, and that was bullshit. I doubt you have anything better,” she added, pointing to Morrison, who looked down. “Unless either of you has a good fucking reason why you abandoned your responsibilities, abandoned everyone who cared about you, or you know what, if either of you can give me a good fucking reason why Gabe is a goddamn vape stunt–”

“We’re looking at that,” Ana cut in. “We’ve been following him, tracking him–”

“He said it was your fault.” A pall settled over Ana’s face, and Morrison looked up quickly. 

“I know,” Ana said quietly. “He told me– he said the same to me.” Her one eye was shining a little and Fareeha felt, despite everything, a twist of pity and guilt. “Something happened to him, Fareeha, and we– neither Jack or I knows anything about it, and we should have been the ones who would know, so we don’t think it’s Overwatch. But he seems convinced that everyone there was out to get him.”

“After the enhancement program, I don’t think he ever got over being treated like a guinea pig,” Morrison said in a low voice. “He never trusted the doctors and then he never trusted the UN, but I thought he would trust us.”

The pity vanished and was replaced with fear. “Angela,” Fareeha whispered. The two of them looked at her, confused. 

“What about her?” Ana asked. 

“She’s in the city, and what if he knows that?” Fareeha snatched her shirt out of her mother’s hands and pulled it on. “She was the head of the medical team, she did a ton of experiments with regeneration, I bet he thinks she has something to do with this.” She pulled her head through the fabric in time to see her mother and Morrison exchanging a look. “She didn’t,” she added acidly. “Angela takes goddamn responsibility for what she’s done. But there’s something wrong with him. And who knows. Maybe he bothered to look up whether or not I got married.”

“I knew you got married,” Ana said. Her hands were still clasped around the absent shirt. “I donated to that Doctors Without Borders fund you two had on your registry.”

“Well great, thanks. Makes up for spending the happiest day of my life thinking you were dead, I guess.” She stormed towards the exit. Neither made a move to stop her, and so she stopped herself and turned, feeling somewhat like a sulky child who needed to have the last word. “I’m going back to Angela,” she spat. “Because I don’t abandon my family.”

She walked out of the tomb and into the moonlit desert. She looked around. She could just see the temple in the distance, and she could not see any vehicles. Her ribs still ached. It was going to be a long night. 

-

“I feel fine, Angie,” she said. Of course, Angela just shook her head and did not halt the nanobiotic scan she was running, but it was the spirit of the thing. 

“No offense, but I don’t trust your mother or Jack as far as I can throw them.” Angela practically spat out the latter name and Fareeha smiled. 

“Okay,” she said. She felt horribly restless just sitting there, but she knew Angela wouldn’t be able to be calm herself until she made sure she was okay. Anymore than Fareeha hadn’t been able to settle in the slightest until she had opened their apartment door and seen Angela, sitting on the couch with a dog on either side of her, looking tired and worried but completely unharmed. 

“You don’t seem surprised Morrison’s alive,” Fareeha commented. “I mean, I had just seen Gabe, so. But you took it pretty straight.”

“I’ve heard about Soldier: 76,” Angela said drily. The scanner pinged and Angela set it down. Fareeha rolled back down her sleeve. “That was his ID in the Enhancement Program, you know. He was basically running around with his social security number on his jacket. So I’d had my suspicions.”

“Could have let me know.” She said it without any real malice, but Angela still searched her face before offering up a sheepish smile. 

“I wanted to be sure, I guess. It could have been an imposter. And especially after your mom...”

“Yeah.” She remembered the awful nausea she had felt seeing Gabe’s ruined, corpse-like face. “I get that. Thank you.”

Angela’s face dropped at her pensive tone, and she stood and walked from the kitchen table to the living room couch. She patted the cushion next to her, and then pushed Sunny back as the dog tried to hop on to the reserved seat. Fareeha smiled and followed her, scratching Sunny’s ears in consolation. 

“Gabe’s alive too,” Angela said, when she had sat down. 

“Gabe’s alive too.”

“You said he was… smoky?”

“Yeah.” Fareeha rubbed her temple, trying to think of the right description. “Like– he would disintegrate into a cloud, and then reform. His face– I could tell it was him, but he was–” She barked out a laugh and Angela looked at her in concern. “He looked like he actually was a zombie, Ang.”

“That’s not a particularly scientific term,” Angela murmured. 

“...can you think of a scientific one?”

“Fair enough.” Angela was resting her chin on her hand and staring into the distance. Fareeha lay back, resting her sore ribs, and scratched the top of Sunny’s head. 

“You think you know something,” Fareeha said, after Angela had been quiet for a couple minutes. 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She ran her fingers through her bangs. “I was working on rapid cellular regenerative nanobiological treatments. That would explain the reforming, and how he survived. Except I destroyed all that research, once I realized it could create… zombies, for lack of a better term. And that was the best case scenario. Someone could have come to that conclusion independently, I suppose, I haven’t been in research for a while, but no one was even close when I left. And I would have heard about it, surely…”

“Do you think someone could have recovered your notes?” Fareeha asked. “We had reports the Sombra collective are working with Talon.”

“I hope not. Maybe. I don’t know.” Angela dropped her head in her hands. “I did everything I could, Fareeha, I swear. I knew what I had. But I guess I didn’t because I couldn’t have seen this, not this bad. But I did everything, I swear, I don’t know what else I could have done–”

“Hey.” Fareeha put her hand on Angela’s hunched back and rubbed small circles. Angela shuddered out a sob. “I know you did. I know you didn’t want this. It’s not your fault.”

“But if that’s what it is, then it is, Fareeha.” Angela looked up at her with red eyes. “It’s still my work. My doing. I need to take responsibility for it.”

Fareeha nodded and squeezed her shoulder. “Okay,” she said softly. “What do you want us to do?”

“I said my work, Fareeha, you don’t need to–”

“Angie.” Fareeha stared at her dubiously. “Do you think there is anything in the world you could say, that would convince me to leave this solely to you?” Angela hesitated, then shook her head. “Then can we please just skip this?”

Angela managed giggle a little. “But you know, if we want to find him again–”

“I know.” Fareeha sighed. “That means we have to find them again, first.” Now, Angela was staring at her dubiously, and she frowned. “What?”

“Fareeha. If your mother is not within a meter of our apartment, I will throw the Caduceus staff in the Nile.”

-

“She’s going to spot us sooner or later,” Jack said. When Ana didn’t respond or look away from her scope, he huffed in annoyance and sat down, arms folded, against the chimney. Ana retrained her focus on the apartment window, where, through a narrow crack in the curtains, she had seen her daughter. Fareeha had looked alive and well, and then she had slipped back out of view. 

“Or anyone’s going to see us,” Jack continued. Ana rolled her eye. “Do you realize how weird this looks? I think this might be illegal.”

“Oh, no. Doing something illegal. The horror.”

“Come on, Ana. What are we even doing here?”

“Making sure my daughter’s safe,” she replied steadily. 

“You know she’s safe. Really, why are we still here?”

Ana studied the pale blue curtains and the inch of living room one last time, then she lowered her rifle and walked away from the edge of the rooftop. She sat down next to Jack, who watched her closely. 

“I don’t think she’s coming back,” Ana said. Jack frowned. 

“To the Necropolis? I mean– we aren’t there anymore, either. And it’s not exactly easy to get to. Why would she?”

“No, I know. I mean– she was so angry, Jack.” She lay her rifle across her lap and traced the clip. “It was the first time we’d actually seen each other in years, and she didn’t seem happy, or conflicted, or anything. She was just angry. I knew I had my work cut out for me, but this– I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me.”

Jack put his arm around her, and she leaned against him. His pleather jacket was slippery and uncomfortable. “She just went through a lot,” he said gently. “She was probably still in shock. You can’t base everything off that.”

“But she didn’t give me her number or address or anything. She didn’t give me any way to get in touch with her. Doesn’t that indicate she wants nothing to do with me?”

“Or it indicates she knew you’d follow her and spy on her.” Ana flinched at Jack’s blunt language, but he didn’t seem to notice. “If she wanted you out of her life, she would have told you so. But I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Maybe.” Ana chewed on her lip. “You really think this is spying on her?”

“I mean. What did you think it was?”

“I don’t know. Spying just makes me sound like such an overbearing mother.” Jack coughed and then squeaked when she elbowed him hard in the stomach. “I just wanted to make sure she got home safe.”

“Sounds perfectly reasonable,” Jack gasped, rubbing his gut. Ana rolled her eyes and walked to the ledge, the scope to her eye. One last look. Just to be sure. 

The curtains were open now. And Angela and Fareeha were standing in the window, staring right at her. She slowly lowered the rifle. 

“What?” Jack asked. “What is it?”

“You were right,” she said. 

“What? About what?”

“Don’t rub it in.” She pulled him up– he looked deeply confused– and slung the rifle over her shoulder. “Come on. It’s time for a family reunion.”

**Author's Note:**

> If, God willing, we get an Amari short, I'm expecting it to be something around the Anubis AI and Fareeha and Ana meeting back up. So I wanted to post this before it got jossed. Suck it, Chu, you're stealing from me now.
> 
> I'm @tacticalgrandma on tumblr if you want to talk to me there!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and any comments/kudos will make me love you <3


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